Fun league slices through intimidation for beginners (with video)

METRO VANCOUVER — There are beer leagues for hockey, baseball, soccer and just about every other sport under the sun so why not one for golf?

That was the question Lower Mainlanders Eddie Lee, 30, and Stephen Leong, 28, asked themselves three years ago, having taken a few wild swings at the game only to discover they loved it but couldn’t find the right niche in which to play. As for the regular leagues, they felt they just weren’t good enough.

They figured there are probably more bad golfers than good ones, more 9-to-5 office workers who can only play on the weekends than doctors, lawyers and high-flying investors who can book tee times during the week.

As your typical kind of 9-to-5er, Leong, who works at a graphics printing company, and Lee, who works as the health and recreational manager for the Kwantlen Student Association, fit the demographic they were targeting perfectly. Better still, they were bad golfers. “When I say bad golfers, I mean we were not good,” said Lee with a laugh at the Mayfair Lakes golf course in Richmond.

When you can’t find what you are looking for, sometimes you have to invent it. The tag team that went to David Thompson high school together decided to set up what they call “a beer league on the green” for people who want to play but are intimidated.

One of the keys is grouping people together who are at the same skill level. When you are not the only one firing balls into the trees or into the water with stunning regularity, you don’t feel so bad. You can get mad or laugh together.

The word intimidating can be an understatement. A high-end golf course, with all its dos and don’ts, can be as hushed and deferential as a church ministers’ banquet.

Being the ultimate gentleman’s sport, the rules of decorum can seem a little old-fashioned: no jeans or tank tops on the golf course, dead silence when someone is taking a swing and no cat-calling or trying to trick out your opponent. A bit hard for the average jeering, trash-talking, beer-swilling sports fan to get their mind around. What other sport requires you to call your own penalties? Such a concept would be laughed off the ice in hockey.

Golf is also a bit counter-intuitive. While you play sports like hockey with guns blazing, it’s almost worse if you do that in golf. Things can go south quickly when you try too hard. You have to stay calm.

These two guys are here to help with the adaptation process.

When they set up their simply named Vancouver Golf League in 2010, 100 people signed up. That told them they were possibly on to something. There was also a bit of trial and error. Leong recounted how they set up a first hole past a ravine for beginners. No one could seem to get past the water.

Since then, the league has grown to 150. They want to grow it more, to knock down more barriers, so that the familiar refrain of “I’m not good enough” is an echo from the distant past.

Golf courses welcome the pair because they are bringing a new clientele to a faltering sport while respecting its rules.

Lee and Leong take care to bring members to the big golf courses only when they are ready and can play at par. Catering to a wide range, the league offers a beginners package that includes events and lessons.

To find their swing, the absolute neophytes are led first to smaller, rookie golf courses that are an intermediate step between the pitch-and-putt places and the full-fledged deal.

For $469 plus tax, you get six rounds of golf at some premium courses such as Westwood Plateau, Mayfair Lakes, the UBC golf course, Fraserview, Langara and McCleery, played on weekends at good tee times. Member benefits like discounts on golf lessons and in certain golf stores are thrown in as a bonus.

They try to make even the hackers feel as though they are at a real golfing event, complete with league signage around the course, sponsor signs and product giveaways. It’s more than a round of golf.

The pair are heartened to see a healthy component of women signing up in the beginner division. Golf is very male-dominated sport. And does the beer league on the green consume beer? Yes, there is that component, too.

What many outsiders perhaps don’t realize is that golf is a very sociable sport. It’s gives you the chance to walk and talk. Just stay quiet during that all-important swing.

“Our players definitely drink beer,” said Lee. “It’s quite social.” They want to keep it that way to that those who don’t think they are good enough can still come out and have fun.

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Fun league slices through intimidation for beginners (with video)

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